Every fortnight I go to a group which is interested in the influence of Anglo-Saxon language on English, and in particular in the language spoken before the Norman Conquest here in the southwest of England. So much of our language comes from those roots… but overlaid on it is the words we have inherited from the conquerors, the Normans. In fact, originally the Normans were the Northmen, Vikings from Scandinavia, but they settled in Normandy, adopted the language and brought it to England after 1066.